Krebs on Security

In-depth security news and investigation

Posts Tagged: carderprofit.cc

The U.S. Justice Department today announced a series of actions against more than 100 people accused of purchasing and using “Blackshades,” a password-stealing Trojan horse program designed to infect computers throughout the world to spy on victims through their web cameras, steal files and account information, and log victims’ key strokes. While any effort that discourages the use of point-and-click tools for ill-gotten gains is a welcome development, the most remarkable aspect of this crackdown is that those who were targeted in this operation lacked any clue that it was forthcoming.

The product was sold via well-traveled and fairly open hacker forums, and even included an active user forum where customers could get help configuring and wielding the powerful surveillance tool. Although in recent years a license to Blackshades sold for several hundred Euros, early versions of the product were sold via PayPal for just USD $40.

In short, Blackshades was a tool created and marketed principally for buyers who wouldn’t know how to hack their way out of a paper bag. From the Justice Department’s press release today:

“After purchasing a copy of the RAT, a user had to install the RAT on a victim’s computer – i.e., “infect” a victim’s computer. The infection of a victim’s computer could be accomplished in several ways, including by tricking victims into clicking on malicious links or by hiring others to install the RAT on victims’ computers.

The RAT contained tools known as ‘spreaders’ that helped users of the RAT maximize the number of infections. The spreader tools generally worked by using computers that had already been infected to help spread the RAT further to other computers. For instance, in order to lure additional victims to click on malicious links that would install the RAT on their computers, the RAT allowed cybercriminals to send those malicious links to others via the initial victim’s social media service, making it appear as if the message had come from the initial victim.”

News that the FBI and other national law enforcement organizations had begun rounding up Blackshades customers started surfacing online last week, when multiple denizens of the noob-friendly hacker forum Hackforums[dot]net began posting firsthand experiences of receiving a visit from local authorities related to their prior alleged Blackshades use. See the image gallery at the end of this post for a glimpse into the angst that accompanied that development.

While there is a certain amount of schadenfreude in today’s action, the truth is that any longtime Blackshades customer who didn’t know this day would be coming should turn in his hacker card immediately. In June 2012, the Justice Department announced a series of indictments against at least two dozen individuals who had taken the bait and signed up to be active members of “Carderprofit,” a fraud forum that was created and maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Among those arrested in the CarderProfit sting was Michael Hogue, the alleged co-creator of Blackshades. That so many of the customers of this product are teenagers who wouldn’t know a command line prompt from a hole in the ground is evident by the large number of users who vented their outrage over their arrests and/or visits by the local authorities on Hackforums, which by the way was the genesis of the CarderProfit sting from Day One.

In June 2010, Hackforums administrator Jesse Labrocca — a.k.a. “Omniscient” — posted a message to all users of the forum, notifying them that the forum would no longer tolerate the posting of messages about ways to buy and use the ZeuS Trojan, a far more sophisticated remote-access Trojan that is heavily used by cybercriminals worldwide and has been implicated in the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from small- to mid-sized businesses worldwide.

Hackforums admin Jesse “Omniscient” LaBrocca urging users to register at a new forum — Carderprofit.cc — a sting Web site set up by the FBI.

The U.S. Justice Department today unveiled the results of a two-year international cybercrime sting that culminated in the arrest of 26 people accused of trafficking in hundreds of thousands of stolen credit and debit card accounts. Among those arrested was an alleged core member of “UGNazi,” a malicious hacking group that has claimed responsibility for a flood of recent attacks on Internet businesses.

The carding forum Carderprofit.cc was an FBI sting operation.

Federal officials are calling the operation the largest coordinated international law enforcement action in history directed at “carding” crimes, in which the Internet is used to traffic in and exploit the stolen credit card, bank account and other personal information of hundreds of thousands of victims.

According to documents released by the Justice Department, the sting — dubbed “Operation Card Shop” — began in June 2010, when the FBI established an undercover carding forum called “CarderProfit” (carderprofit.cc) to identify users who were buying and selling stolen credit card accounts and goods purchased with stolen accounts.

The FBI kept track of Internet addresses used by forum members, and used members’ login information to gather additional information about registered users. The agency tightened the noose in May 2012, when it began imposing new membership requirements to restrict site membership to individuals with established knowledge of carding techniques or interest in criminal activity.

“For example, at times, new users were prevented from joining the site unless they were recommended by two existing users who had registered with the site, or unless they paid a registration fee,” the government said in a statement about today’s arrests. “New users registering with the [undercover] site were required to provide a valid e- mail address as part of the registration process. The e-mail addresses entered by registered members of the site were collected by the FBI.”

Carderprofit.cc as it appears now.

Meanwhile, the feds were collecting stolen credit and debit card accounts that were being traded by forum members, and feeding the information back to issuing banks. The Justice Department said it contacted affected financial institutions regarding more than 411,000 compromised credit and debit cards, and notified 47 companies, government entities, and educational institutions of the breach of their networks.